New Delhi: In a bizarre claim amid his escalating rhetoric against India, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro has said that India’s Brahmin elite are enriching themselves “at the expense of the Indian people.”
Navarro’s remarks made during an appearance on Fox News Friday came as he defended President Donald Trump’s decision to double tariffs on Indian goods to 50 percent, citing New Delhi’s continued purchase of Russian oil.
When the reporter asked if the tariffs on India are enough to “choke Vladimir Putin”, Navarro responded: “Prime Minister Modi is a great leader but I do not understand why he is getting in bed with Putin and Xi Jinping. So I would just simply say to the Indian people, please, understand what’s going on here. You’ve got Brahmins profiteering at the expense of the Indian people. We need that to stop.”
He then made his often repeated claims of India being “Kremlin’s laundromat” as he reiterated that “the Russian refiners went in and got into bed with big oil in India.
“Putin gives Modi a discount on the crude. They refine it and they ship it to Europe, Africa and Asia at a big premium. And they make a ton of money. Now, what’s wrong with that picture? Well, it fuels the Russian war machine. India’s nothing but a laundromat for the Kremlin. It kills Ukrainians. And what we have to do as taxpayers, we’ve got to send them more money so Ukraine can defend themselves,” he said.
Dubbing India as the ‘Maharaja of tariffs’ for the fourth time, he then added: “On top of that, by the way, 25 percent of the 50 percent is because India’s the maharaja of tariffs. They have the highest tariffs in the world. They won’t let us sell to them, so who gets hurt? Workers in America, taxpayers in America, Ukrainians in cities getting killed by Russian drones.”
The comments mark the latest in a series of barbed statements from Navarro, who has sought to portray India’s trade with Russia as undermining US efforts to isolate Moscow. He has earlier argued that India, despite being the world’s largest democracy, is “profiteering” from discounted Russian crude in ways that ultimately strengthen “Putin’s war machine”.
Navarro also noted that China faces similar tariff levels, but said the administration is weighing how much higher duties could go “without actually hurting ourselves.” Asked whether tariffs on India were sufficient to choke off Moscow’s revenues, he reiterated that the 50 percent levy is “already substantial” but left open the possibility of further escalation.
India, for its part, has defended its imports of Russian oil as essential for energy security and has resisted US pressure to scale back, stressing its independent foreign policy. The dispute comes at a time when Washington and New Delhi have deepened defense and technology ties, making Navarro’s sharp rhetoric all the more striking.
Navarro came on Fox News to defend the tariffs after a federal appeals court Friday ruled that Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs on nearly all US trading partners, finding that such measures went beyond the limits of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in a 7-4 decision, affirmed a lower trade court’s May ruling that Trump’s reliance on emergency powers to justify broad tariffs was unlawful. However, the court allowed certain targeted protectionist measures to remain in effect.
“The boss is always right. This was weaponised by politicians in black robes. Most curiously, the five importers, very small companies trying to preserve the right to import cheap Chinese crap mostly. If you follow the money, that road leads at least partly to the Koch network, the infamous anti-Trump Koch network. So it was a bad decision,” Navarro said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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US should better mind its own business instead of playing such dirty cast based politics by riding at the shoulders of some well known anti-national elements.
Rahul takes his lessons from this guy
😁😁🤗 mystery solved…Its Tejashwi yadav ; RaGa who are advising Peter bhaiya